Sylvia didn’t even blink. “And you should thank me for it, because now you know the truth.” Her voice was calm, but her cheeks were flushed and the chair made a loud noise as she pushed it back. “I know I’m an old battle-axe, but I was a good secretary to Mr. Greer. They say his own daughter shot him in cold blood. She’s just as crazy as her mother was. She should have gotten the death penalty as far as I’m concerned. Now I’m going back to work.”
“Which mental hospital was it?” I called to her retreating back as I stood. “I’d like to go through the records.”
Sylvia was done with me, but she couldn’t resist one parting shot. “Do you think her rich family would send her to one of the public ones?” she said scornfully over her shoulder. “Of course they didn’t. It was a private place. I don’t remember the name of it, but it was on Linwood Street. I don’t know why she matters, but good luck.”
Fifteen minutes later, I was back behind the reception desk at work, feeling strangely exhausted. Sylvia’s grievances, held for decade after decade, were heavy. I couldn’t imagine carrying that weight all the time.
Still, when no one was looking, I took a second to pull out my phone and text Michael: I’m going to need some help pulling property records for Linwood Street. Specifically from the 1950s.
This was my only bit of luck: Linwood Street was one of the now-gentrified streets downtown, and it wasn’t very long. It definitely didn’t have a hospital building on it. My recall of it was that it was mostly stately homes. One of those homes might, in the fifties, have been the discreet kind of place where a rich family could send their teenage daughter to have a mental breakdown.
I don’t know why she matters, Sylvia had said.
I didn’t, either. I wasn’t sure why I was doing this. It was some kind of instinct. Beth’s father had been murdered by the Lady Killer; Beth’s mother was possibly mentally ill. All of this was part of the woman who fascinated me, the woman who—I could admit it—scared me, not least because some cold part of me actually liked her. What that said about me, I didn’t even want to think about.
* * *
—
I split the property records on Linwood Street with Michael—he took half and I took half. I spent most of that evening sorting through online records while lying in bed with my laptop, Winston by my side. By one in the morning, I hadn’t found what I wanted and my eyes could barely focus, but I wasn’t ready to sleep.
I clicked open the digital file I had of the 1981 TV movie made about the Lady Killer case. It was called Deadly Woman, and I watched Jaclyn Smith, as Beth, face off against a soap actor who looked at least forty-five and was supposed to be playing Detective Black.
“I’m telling the truth,” Jaclyn said. Her hair had been dyed red for the role, and her eye makeup was frosty, her lashes clumped and dark.
“We’ll see about that, Beth,” the soap actor said as dramatic music soared behind his lines.
Jaclyn leaned forward, the camera going into dewy soft focus on her beautiful face, the music swelling higher. “You’ve got to believe me!” she cried. She was wearing a cream blouse with ruffles at the neck and the cuffs; red blush had been dabbed on her cheekbones. Her voice went up a notch as she shouted: “You’ve just got to!”
“Listen, Beth,” said the soap actor. “I’d like to believe you, but nothing you say adds up. You wrote those notes. You know you did. You’re lying so much you don’t even know what’s the truth anymore. But I do. And the truth is, you shot those men!”
I sighed and paused it, freezing on a frame of Jaclyn Smith’s face right before she got angry. In Deadly Woman, Beth was a manipulator, a heartless killer, a siren, trying to work her wiles on poor Detective Black and failing in the face of his moral superiority. It was all right there in the title.